But, wait: nothing is ever that easy; And, there's no such thing as 100 percent passive income. Building passive income actually requires hustle and an investment of time upfront to get your money off the ground and growing while you eat, sleep and play. Maintaining that growth means making sure that you're using the right tools and strategies to automate the work for you.
Haha, that is too funny. I wanted to make an app back in the day called “MyShares” (You can probably tell how I cam up with the name at the time). The idea was that I would loan out books and DVD’s and then would never get them back. Then I thought, how cool would it be if I could rent those items out and that would motivate people to bring them back. Obviously, books and DVD’s are cheap, so this isn’t the money maker. The idea that would probably make the most money would be things like tools, ATVs, etc.
In June, he put ads on his site with Google Adsense, and within the first hour, earned $1.08 with three clicks. He earned $5 the first day, $7 the second, and then eventually began pulling in $15-$30 a day. In October, he created an ebook exam study guide priced at $19.99. By month’s end, he earned $7,906.55 — more than he had ever previously earned in a month.
I’m with you Dennis. My whole goal, for years, was to get myself into a position to be able to go back to flight instructing but not be reliant on the income (because it isn’t good). I didn’t know how I would do it, but I ended up starting my own business that I work whenever I want, so now I can pop out to the airport for a couple flights a week and have fun with it, not care about the income (or lack there of) and enjoy it. That is a “job” I will probably always work, but it’s because it’s fun and not required for the income.
Oh it matters. It matters because accomplishing your goals depends on understanding these terms very clearly. What is the most common reason investors give as to why they are getting into real estate investing or why they are already in it? Financial freedom. Those who want financial freedom very clearly define that goal as being able to use real estate as a vehicle to eventually break loose of their current career and not have to work for their income. Okay, cool, a goal! And an amazing goal at that. Okay, so financial freedom, let’s talk about that.

Any loss that’s allowable in a particular year reduces your at-risk investment (but not below zero) as of the beginning of the next tax year and in all succeeding tax years for that activity. If you have a loss that’s more than your at-risk amount, the loss disallowed won’t be allowed in later years unless you increase your at-risk amount. Losses that are suspended because they’re greater than your investment that’s at risk are treated as a deduction for the activity in the following year. Consequently, if your amount at risk increases in later years, you may deduct previously suspended losses to the extent that the increases in your amount at risk exceed your losses in later years. However, your deduction of suspended losses may be limited by the passive loss rules.

Proof of participation. You can use any reasonable method to prove your participation in an activity for the year. You don’t have to keep contemporaneous daily time reports, logs, or similar documents if you can establish your participation in some other way. For example, you can show the services you performed and the approximate number of hours spent by using an appointment book, calendar, or narrative summary.

Portfolio income is derived from investments and includes capital gains, interest, dividends, and royalties. Various types of portfolio income are taxed differently. For example, capital gains on investments held for longer than 12 months are taxed at a rate of 10% to 20%, and those held for less than 12 months are taxed as regular income. However, portfolio income is not subject to social security and Medicare taxes.

Self-rental situations are not just limited to buildings. You could lease your car to your S corporation. No, this isn’t the same as leasing a car from a dealership. This is where you own a piece of equipment, let’s say an automobile, and you lease it back to your business for your business’s use. Sounds exotic, but it is quite simple. More about this in a later chapter dedicated to fringe benefits and tax deductions.
I just can’t seem to get my head around creating my own online product. When you talk about it, you make it sound like its mostly just about putting in the time and plugging away at it. Problem is I can never seem to come up with any ideas for a site or product that seem remotely unique or compelling or that I have any special knowledge about. The stuff I do know about is pretty commodity type knowledge that can mostly be found on thousands of sites on the internet already. Any tips on discovering what your “unique angle” is? I mean, you have a pretty compelling and somewhat unique personal story of working on wall street and then walking away at a young age.
I love travel photography. I spend a bunch of time on credit card churning and manufactured spending, which allows me to travel the world for virtually free. When I’m on the road, I take my camera with me to generate an additional form of passive income. Not only that I truly enjoy travel photography. It is a great hobby for me. Is hobby income passive or nonpassive income?

Developing your own passive income stream is an excellent idea if you believe in financial independence. Not only does it give you freedom of time, but it also reduces your stress, anxiety, and fear of the future. In the book Unshakeable by Tony Robbins, he illustrates how investing a couple of hundred dollars a month is all it takes to become a millionaire. This lifestyle empowers you to do the things you love rather than what pays the bills. See the list below.

This is a venture that is growing rapidly. You can create videos in just about any area that you like — music, tutorials, opinions, comedy, movie reviews — anything you want . . . then put them on YouTube. You can then attach Google AdSense to the videos, which will overlay your videos with automatic ads. When viewers click on those ads, you will earn money from AdSense.
A great source of passive income is advertising dollars from other businesses and people. If you have a website, blog, or strong social media following, other businesses will start to take notice. A trick I have learned in this space is that it is much less expensive and faster to go where people already are then to try and create it yourself. But, if you create it yourself, then others will come to you. This is how you turn you blog, etc. into passive income. Let’s say your blog has 300,000 visitors a month, that’s quite the following! Other businesses and people looking to advertise a product or service would rather come to you and pay you to have their advertising on your blog. This is less expensive for them since you have already created an audience for them, and great for you since they are paying you for this audience.

Let’s say I am a parttime real estate investor with buy and hold rentals. I have a normal W-2 job but decided for educational purposes to take/pass the state real estate licensing exam. Now if I have an opportunity and want to work on nights/weekends as a real estate agent, does my passive rental income now get taxed (and much higher) as active income? Or does this come down to whether I work +\- 500 hours as an agent?

Ebooks are one of my favorite sources of passive income. Now, you can do this the simple way and just publish it on Amazon's KDP. Or, you can go all out and build yourself a book funnel. Book funnels are powerful, but they won't be fully passive. For example, if you do a free-plus-shipping offer for your ebook (converting it into a physical book), you'll need to create some one-time offers (i.e. extra training) and up-sells (i.e. an audiobook). But, a book funnel can be very powerful.
If you can max out your 401k or max out your IRA and then save an additional 20%+ of your after-tax, after-retirement contribution, good things really start to happen. If one is looking for earlier financial independence, such as retiring in their 40s or early 50s, it may be a good idea to skew towards more after-tax savings and investments given one has to wait until 59.5 to withdraw from their 401k or IRA penalty-free.

One aspect you might want to add to your scoring is “inflation protection”. At one end, bonds and CDs generally pay a fixed nominal coupon that doesn’t rise with inflation. Stock dividends and Real estate rents (and underlying property value) tend to. Not reallly sure how P2P lending ranks- though I suppose the timeframes are fairly short (1 year or less?) and therefore the interest you receive takes into account the current risk free rate + a premium for your risk. Now that I think about it, P2P lending probably deserves a lower score in the activity column than bonds too (since you probably need to make new loans more often).

Build an investment portfolio that pays out dividends (Stocks / Bonds / Mutual Funds). Dividends are payouts that companies give to their investors as a portion of their earnings. They’re often paid out quarterly. If you’ve already got an investment portfolio, it’s time to take a good look at which stocks, bonds, or mutual funds you own. You’ll see consistent returns from the ones that pay dividends. This is a fantastic way to earn passive income. Invest once and watch the returns pile up.
Role of “real estate professional” can be well played by a non-working or stay-at-home spouse. If you’ve got one who’s willing of course. 🙂 Under current tax law, with a spouse/real estate professional materially participating in the rental property activities, the 3.8% Medicare tax (discussed in Section 1) can be entirely avoided. So, while there is a bit of burden in meeting the requirements, this could be a great play for a Doc and a real estate professional spouse who want to take unlimited real estate losses against regular earned income AND shelter any gains from the additional 3.8% tax.

The IRS defines depreciation losses as “allowances for exhaustion, wear and tear (including obsolescence) of property.” According to their website, “You begin to depreciate your rental property when you place it in service. You can recover some or all of your original acquisition cost and the cost of improvements by using Form 4562, Depreciation and Amortization, (to report depreciation) beginning in the year your rental property is first placed in service, and beginning in any year you make improvements or add furnishings.”

Self-rental situations are not just limited to buildings. You could lease your car to your S corporation. No, this isn’t the same as leasing a car from a dealership. This is where you own a piece of equipment, let’s say an automobile, and you lease it back to your business for your business’s use. Sounds exotic, but it is quite simple. More about this in a later chapter dedicated to fringe benefits and tax deductions.

For tax years beginning after January 24, 2010, the following disclosure requirements for groupings apply. You’re required to report certain changes to your groupings that occur during the tax year to the IRS. If you fail to report these changes, each trade or business activity or rental activity will be treated as a separate activity. You will be considered to have made a timely disclosure if you filed all affected income tax returns consistent with the claimed grouping and make the required disclosure on the income tax return for the year in which you first discovered the failure to disclose. If the IRS discovered the failure to disclose, you must have reasonable cause for not making the required disclosure.

Haha, that is too funny. I wanted to make an app back in the day called “MyShares” (You can probably tell how I cam up with the name at the time). The idea was that I would loan out books and DVD’s and then would never get them back. Then I thought, how cool would it be if I could rent those items out and that would motivate people to bring them back. Obviously, books and DVD’s are cheap, so this isn’t the money maker. The idea that would probably make the most money would be things like tools, ATVs, etc.